News & Updates

Inside Carleton, a biannual publication of Carleton's Stewardship Office, devoted its winter 2012 issue to showcasing the Weitz Center for Creativity. Filled with beautiful photos of interior spaces throughout the building, the entire issue can be viewed online at the Inside Carleton website.

Carleton director of the arts Steve Richardson gives a video update of the ongoing construction of the Weitz Center, including views of the theater, cinema, dance studio, video production studio, teaching museum, and the common area/coffee shop that looks out onto the park.

David Wiles, Chair of the Theater and Dance department, talks about the 250-seat state of the art theater currently being constructed at the Weitz Center for Creativity. The space will "create new forms of classroom experiences and creative experiences for students," says Wiles.

Beverly Nagel, Dean of the College, talks about the IdeaLab—the Weitz Center's centralized technology resource center—that will help students to become better creators of the visual materials that are an increasingly-important component of teaching and learning.

Pierre Hecker, Assistant Professor of English, is "unbelievably excited about the prospect of moving into the Weitz Center for Creativity." The screenings of his Shakespeare on Film seminar in the building's new cinema will be open to the general public, just one sign of the increased community integration that the facility will provide. The new space will allow the teaching of a "living, breathing, up-out-of-your-seat" Shakespeare that goes way beyond what a regular English Department class can offer.

Laurel Bradley, Director of Exhibitions and Curator of the College Art Collection, talks about the Weitz Center's new Teaching Museum, and how the "more professionally-designed and executed facility" will allow access to a higher level of exhibition than the current Art Gallery. The inaugural exhibition, Seeing is Knowing: The Universe, will open in Fall 2011.

In the fifth webisode updating the progress on Carleton's newly-renamed Weitz Center for Creativity, the College's director of the arts, Steve Richardson, shows us the continued progress in the theater, dance studio and video production suites, while explaining exactly why this new facility has the word "creativity" in its name.

Carleton has announced that it is renaming its new Arts Union facility, scheduled to open September 2011, as the Weitz Center for Creativity. The renaming of the project, currently under way at the site of the former Northfield Middle School, reflects the contributions made by the family of Wally (’70) and Barbara (’70) Weitz, their children Katie (’96), Roger (’99), and Drew (’02), and their spouses Watie White (’93), Kate, and Meredith (’02) of $15 million towards the completion of the facility. The Weitz family is the largest single donor in College history at $25 million, as they also gave $10 million to launch Carleton’s Breaking Barriers, Creating Connections $300 million campaign, successfully completed this past June. Barbara and Wally served as the campaign’s co-chairs, and Wally has been a member of Carleton’s Board of Trustees since 2000.

A tour of the Weitz Center project as steel work begins on the new teaching museum, along with a view of one of the two dance studios, a glance inside the old auditorium, the performance theater and some classroom space.

In the third installment of the Weitz Center webisodes, we get initial reactions to the new space from Carleton cinema and media studies professor John Schott and staff member and media technology specialist and team lead Lew Weinberg, who will lead up the effort in the Idea Lab. We also take another look inside the old auditorium, as the balcony is demolished to make way for a new cinema.

In the second webisode on the Weitz Center construction process, the Art Museum's progress is highlighted, and we take a peek into the attic of the 1910 portion of the building. We also get our final look at the old auditorium before the balcony is demolished to make way for a new cinema in that space.